| Lemma | change |
|---|---|
| Categoria grammaticale | N |
| Lingua | inglese |
| Sigla | Whitney (1875) |
| Titolo | The Life and Growth of language |
| Sinonimi | |
| Rinvii | |
| Traduzioni | |
| Citazioni | […] every person is conscious of his inability to effect a change in language by his own authority and arbitrarily; and what he cannot do, he is sure that nobody can do. And this is true enough; in a sense, it is not the individual but the community, that makes and changes language. […] if language had always remained in its original simple state, the sphere of change would have been a greatly restricted one, and the effects far less comparable to decay. […] it is not necessary that every single change should start from a single point. There are some toward which the general mind so distinctly inclines, which lie so close outside of and within reach from the present boundaries of usage, that they are made independently by many persons, in many places, and thus have a variety of starting-points from which to strive after currency. […] slowness or rapidity of change in language is dependent on stability or change of place in the speaking community: which is so grossly wrong that it needs no refutation. […] the mode of pronunciation of every language is all the time undergoing a change: a change now more and now less important and pervading, but never entirely intermitted; and that no two languages change after precisely the same fashion. […] the other grand department of change in the existing material of language- namely, that of the inner content or meaning of words. This is just as vast a subject as the preceding [change in the outer form of words] and, if possible, even more irreducible in its immensity and infinite variety […] no one has ever attempted to classify the processes of significant change, and the movements of the human mind under the variety of circumstances defy cataloguing. […] they [phonetic facts] are very far from being a mere confusion of lawless changes; they have their own method and rules. One sound passes into another that is physically akin with it: that is to say, that is produced by the same organs, or otherwise in a somewhat similar manner; and the movement of transition follows a general direction, or else is governed by specific causes. Even when there is no conspicuous transfer, when the changes of use are so slight and gradual that each new application stands closely connected with its predecessor, there is no real persistency of original value, and the point finally reached is often enough so far off from the place of starting that the one cannot be seen from the other […]. If there were penalties following slips in utterance, the subject of phonetic change would make but a small figure in our comparative grammars. And this is not the only way in which careless or slovenly handling of language leads to change. A very large department of alterations has no other source, but is due to the omissions of distinctions, the blunders of mistaken analogy, on the part of those who have not carefully studied and do not bear accurately in mind the proper uses of the words they employ. It has been already pointed out that the separate possibility of external and internal change rests upon the nature of the tie, as a merely extraneous and unessential one, which connects the meaning of a word with its form. Were the case otherwise, the two kinds of change would be mutually dependent and inseparable; as it is, each runs its own course and is determined by its own causes; even though the history of the two may often touch, or go on for a time in close connection. It is simply impossible to exhaust the variety of significant change in linguistic growth: there is no conceivable direction in which a transfer may not be made; there is no assignable distance to which a word may not wander from its primitive meaning. The disguising effect of the two principles of change which bear their part in every new formation [the processes of oblivion and attenuation and transfer of meaning, and of disguise and abbreviation] is such that after a time we may be able only to guess, or not even that, at its origin. This kind of change [new syntactical combinations of the old materials of speech] is ever operating like a ferment through the whole material of language, incorporating without outward show the changed apprehensions, the clearer cognitions, the sharpened distinctions, which are the result of gradual intellectual growth. It is […] the mind of the community all the time at work beneath the framework of its old language, improving its instruments of expression by adapting them to new uses. This last mode of change [acquisition of new material] […] constitutes in a higher and more essential sense than any of the others the growth of language, and ought to bring most distinctly to light the forces actually concerned in that growth. |